Black Peter: The Dark Companion of Saint Nicholas and the Most Controversial Figure in Dutch Christmas

Black Peter, Zwarte Piet in Dutch, is the companion of Sinterklaas, the Dutch Saint Nicholas, and the most controversial figure in contemporary Dutch Christmas culture. He arrives with Sinterklaas from Spain in mid-November, helps distribute gifts to good children, and carries a bag and a birch rod for naughty ones, who are stuffed in the bag and taken back to Spain if they have been sufficiently misbehaved. He is depicted in the Netherlands with black face paint, curly hair, red lips, and elaborate colourful clothing, and the tradition has become the subject of intense and ongoing public debate in the Netherlands and Belgium about race, historical memory, and the relationship between folk tradition and contemporary social values.

The history of Black Peter is considerably more complex than either side of the contemporary debate tends to acknowledge. The figure’s origins are genuinely obscure, his racial coding was not always his primary characteristic, and the specific form in which he became controversial developed relatively recently in the history of the tradition.

The Origins

Saint Nicholas’s companion in various European traditions takes different forms in different countries. In Germanic tradition the companion is Knecht Ruprecht, a wild, rough figure who threatens naughty children with his rod. In Alpine tradition it is Krampus. In the Netherlands the companion became Black Peter, and the specific form of that companion has shifted across the history of the tradition in ways that are difficult to trace precisely.

The earliest documented version of Black Peter as a specific character appears in a children’s book by the schoolteacher Jan Schenkman published in 1850, which depicts him as a dark-skinned boy accompanying Sinterklaas. Before Schenkman’s book, Sinterklaas’s helpers in Dutch tradition were less specifically defined. Schenkman’s specific visual characterisation, which drew on the imagery of enslaved people and colonial figures available in mid-nineteenth century Dutch culture, gave the character the specific appearance that became standard.

The Chimney Explanation

A significant strand of contemporary Dutch opinion has proposed that Black Peter’s black face is the result of soot from climbing down chimneys to deliver gifts rather than racial coding, and this explanation has been adopted by some organisations and public figures as a way of maintaining the tradition while removing its racial dimension. Black Peter is sometimes depicted in a newer version with soot smudges on his face rather than full black face paint, representing a compromise position between those who wish to maintain the tradition unchanged and those who find it offensive.

The chimney explanation is historically questionable — the soot reading does not account for the full character as depicted in the tradition, including the curly hair and red lips — but it represents a genuine attempt to navigate a tradition that is deeply beloved by many Dutch people and genuinely painful to others.

The Wider European Tradition of the Dark Companion

Black Peter belongs to a broader European pattern of Saint Nicholas companions who represent the threatening and punishing dimension of the Christmas gift-giver. Knecht Ruprecht in Germany, Krampus in the Alps, Père Fouettard in France and Belgium — all are dark, rough, threatening figures who accompany the benevolent Saint Nicholas and handle the discipline that the saint himself is too dignified to administer directly. The companion externalises the threat that the gift-giver must implicitly contain: the possibility that Christmas will bring punishment rather than gifts.

For more on the Christmas folklore tradition, the Krampus article covers the Alpine version of the dark Christmas companion. The Père Fouettard article covers the French equivalent. The Christmas hub page has every article in the cluster.